brown study
[app. originally from brown in sense of ‘gloomy’; but this sense has been to a great extent forgotten. (The conjecture that brown ‘might be’ the Ger. braune ‘brow’ does not require serious notice.)]
A state of mental abstraction or musing: ‘gloomy meditations’ (J.); ‘serious reverie, thoughtful absent-mindedness’ (Webster); now esp. an idle or purposeless reverie.
| 1532 Dice-Play 6 Lack of company will soon lead a man into a brown study. 1579 Lyly Euphues (Arb.) 80 You are in some brown study, what colours you might best wear. 1607 Topsell Serpents 772 Nothing but sadnesse, and heavinesse of minde, brown-studies. 1693 Oxford-Act 2 Oft wou'd the new created Sophister Where Boy cry'd, want ye any Coffee, Sir? Start from brown-study. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 286 ¶3 He often puts me into a brown Study how to answer him. 1871 Blackie Four Phases i. 13 He had been standing there in a brown study. |